


Company

by methylviolet10b



Series: Emergency Contact Number [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade wonders and reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Company

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a continuation of the story started in Emergency Contact Number. If you haven't read the previous stories in this series, you might not want to read this one. Also, like every other story in this series, this too is a promptfill fic, in response to the following prompt: "Reference an American version of a British TV show – can include anything from a successful adaptation to a pilot that was filmed but never aired." Astute readers will understand the meta.

Lestrade had lost track of how long they’d been sitting in the private waiting area. He hadn’t checked his watch when they got there, so he couldn’t calculate the actual hours and minutes from their arrival. And subjectively speaking, any calculation of linear time would be meaningless, anyway, because it felt like an eternity, no matter how long it had actually been.

Sherlock hadn’t moved once, not since sitting down. He wasn’t reading, or fiddling with his phone, or doing _anything_ but sitting utterly still and silent, staring at nothing in particular. He hadn’t touched the cup of tea Mycroft’s assistant had brought him (what _was_ her name, anyway?). He hadn’t reacted at all to Mycroft drifting in and out of the waiting area. Lestrade had lost track of how many times that had happened, but he thought it was quite a number. Part of his mind wondered idly where the man kept going off to. Interrogating doctors? Finding out more about the crash? Ordering the invasion of a small, third-world country?

He’d overheard Sherlock saying that to his brother once, when Mycroft had turned up at a crime scene, back in the pre-John days, when Sherlock was still rather more of a junkie than an ex-junkie. He’d thought at the time that Sherlock had meant it as a snarky joke. Since then, Lestrade had seen enough to make him wonder if that hadn’t been something close to the truth.

Probably not wise to inquire too deeply about where Mycroft was going or why, no matter how unflappable he seemed about impertinent questions, or how badly he looked like he needed a good cuppa. The slight imperfection of his rumpled sleeve had been joined by faint shadows under his eyes, and the slightest tension-lines around his mouth. Subtle signs, but compared to the perfect, unruffled façade of earlier, they stood out as if drawn in neon.

Lestrade really, really hoped that those signs weren’t because Mycroft knew more about John’s condition than he was saying.

Then again, if he did know something, wouldn’t it be better to find out right away?

Wouldn’t Sherlock know, if Mycroft knew? Sherlock might look zoned out, more zombie-like than human, but Lestrade wouldn’t bet any money on him not noticing if there was anything to notice.

Trying to think through those possibilities made Lestrade’s head hurt. He gave it up as a bad job and let his mind wander back to Sherlock’s uncanny stillness. _Was_ Sherlock in some kind of trance? No one could sit that still for that long, surely. Maybe he practiced some weird yoga breathing or something in order to keep calm in tense situations? It wouldn’t be the oddest talent the man had demonstrated over the years. Sherlock had astonishing gaps in his knowledge – or at least pretended he did – but he also learned amazingly quickly, and you could never guess what he might find ‘relevant’ and keep around in his brain. Yoga for stress management would at least make some kind of sense. Watching every single episode of The Office – including what existed of the American version at the time – just so he could chat up a suspect, well, that made very little sense to Lestrade, then or now. There were a lot easier ways to go about it; it wasn’t like the suspect had been an antisocial sort, after all. For a short time, Lestrade had thought – okay, maybe hoped – that Sherlock had found something _normal_ to be interested in. Something other than crime. Something as everyday as a telly programme.

Of course Sherlock had cut him off at the knees when Lestrade had tried to chat with him about the show a few weeks later. He’d just stared at him coldly for a moment, then bluntly stated that both versions of the show were banal in the extreme but the American version took the prize for rubbish, as Jim was a very poor substitute for Tim, and who would waste their lives watching these kinds of things anyway? Much less talking about it?

Looking back, Lestrade wondered if Sherlock mightn’t have liked the British version a bit after all. Either that, or he’d been having Lestrade on. And wouldn’t it just figure that the one character Sherlock had said anything positive about – at least in comparison to his American counterpart – acted and looked just a bit like John Watson?

And that was long before Sherlock ever met the man.

Speculation about those two was rife, Lestrade knew. Half the department believed (or perhaps just indulged in wishful or prurient thinking) that the two men were involved in some way. The other half was just as adamant that it was absolutely impossible, for a number of reasons (and in some cases, reflecting some fairly significant biases, something Lestrade kept his eye on as it could interfere with the work). Pretty much everyone thought John was at least a _little_ daft for putting up with Sherlock, much less sharing a flat, but pretty much everyone _liked_ him regardless. After all, the man was so likeable even _Sherlock Holmes_ liked him.

For his part, Lestrade didn’t care to speculate. Oh, he was curious, sure. You didn’t get to be a DI if you weren’t inherently curious. But he’d seen enough of Sherlock and John together to recognize that theirs was a relationship that went beyond such easy definitions as “best mates” or “shagging” or “partners.” They might be some or all of these things, but they were incidentals, like the color of the shirt you happened to wear on any given day; a reflection of something about you, perhaps, but not anything fundamental. Whatever bound the two men together was far deeper than any of that. Lestrade didn’t think that a word existed that truly described it, and he wasn’t about to go searching for one, either. They simply _were_ , two parts of something like nothing else Lestrade had ever seen or heard about. Together they were as unique as they were separately. Greater than the sum of their parts, but even more than that, _different_ than the sum of their parts. And faced with that reality, idle curiosity really didn’t have a place. It diminished what ought to be respected. So Lestrade respected it, and let his speculations slide.

Except now he couldn’t help speculate – worry – fear – what might happen if…

Sherlock’s head turned abruptly, and Lestrade’s attention snapped back to the waiting area. His eyes fixed upon the scrubs-clad figure entering the room. His mind automatically took in details, nothing like what Sherlock would do, but noting the things that policemen were trained to look for and remember: approximate height and weight, skin, hair, and eye color, demeanor. Indian, or maybe Pakistani, dark hair scattered with premature grey despite his relatively young age, face mostly unlined, but shadowed, marked with the telltale signs of those who lived with chronic stress and fatigue.

Lestrade’s mind kept wandering back to that look, even as Sherlock bounded out of his chair. Mycroft and his assistant neatly flanked Sherlock as the three made a bee-line to the doctor. Lestrade trailed a few steps behind, fatigue and dread slowing him down.

A lot of doctors had that look. As did a lot of policemen. Soldiers, too. His own face carried those traces of too many cases and too little rest over far too many years. John’s face still had that look, his years as a solider and doctor soaked into his skin, pulling at it, tugging it down into worn, soft folds.

It was a different kind of look than the emotions that aged Sherlock’s face despite all his efforts at self-control as he digested the doctor’s words.

The doctor’s voice was unexpectedly deep, professionally calm, but rough around the edges with exhaustion. Phrases like “hypovolemic shock,” “fracture hematomas,” “partial splenectomy,” “multiple complications,” and even more complex constructions rolled off of his tongue with weary familiarity, as did adjectives like “critical,” “crucial,” and “grave.”

The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours were crucial. The doctor was plain-spoken in at least that much. Even assuming John survived them – and please, God, let him live, let him recover – Lestrade didn’t think Sherlock’s face would ever look as young as it had earlier that evening, before their visit, before the news, before that call, before the accident.

He knew his wouldn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted August 20, 2011


End file.
